NBA sides have been meeting secretly; 66 game season eyed

And after two dozen negotiating sessions that played out in public, with both sides issuing their spin in comments to the media afterward (with the exception of sessions mediated by George Cohen), we are now learning that secret meetings have been taking place yesterday and today — presumably in an effort to settle all matters related to the NBA lockout, which would include litigation and collective bargaining matters.

So there is some renewed hope, but it should be tempered with a cautionary word: Talking in private, and keeping word of the negotiations out of the public eye, can only be helpful to the process if there is a concerted effort and willingness on both sides to push this negotiation over the finish line. During the 1998-99 lockout, it was far more common for the sides to meet discreetly, but those sessions proved to be as fruitless as the larger, more public negotiating sessions.

League spokesman Mike Bass said the NBA remains in favor of a negotiated resolution, but he declined to comment further.

Beck weighed in with some details late Wednesday night:

“The parties essentially picked up where they left off Nov. 10, discussing a proposal that includes a 50-50 split of revenue, shorter contracts and tougher spending restrictions. The players rejected that deal, but on the basis of a half-dozen mechanical issues which, in the grander scheme, are fairly minor. They have already conditionally agreed to the 50-50 split and most of the new payroll restrictions. Neither side has tried to put any new issues on the table, or backed away from previously negotiated points, according to those informed on the talks. That gives the parties hope that a deal not only can be achieved, but can be consummated quickly. “Both sides could fairly say that it’s crazy to blow the deal up over these remaining issues,” one person close to the talks said Wednesday. Still, no one is ready to espouse optimism, given how many times the talks have collapsed in the last two months.”

If they offer shorter contracts in a system close to the one currently in place, the player will go to the team offering the longer contract because it’s more years with guaranteed income and raises no matter what the percentage. They want a universal limit on the length so they cannot be outbid, and in fact the current system allows teams to offer their own free agents deals that are one year longer and have larger raises – which agents circumvent via sign-and-trades a la James and Bosh.

I’ve always felt that the move to shorter contracts – and if the current proposal passes, the max length will have been reduced from seven to four years in a 13-year span – can work for the player because it makes him a free agent more often during the course of his career. The lack of optouts – another issue up for debate – could mitigate that. But a 20-year-old first-round pick who gets a max extension off his rookie deal would be a FA again at 29 rather than 31 or 32 and 33 rather than his mid-to-late 30s.